Seahawks should not hire Anthony Lynn to be new offensive coordinator

The Seahawks should not hire Anthony Lynn to be their new offensive coordinator. He seems to have the kind of offensive philosophy that jibes well with Seattle coach Pete Carroll. Hiring Lynn, though, would signal the beginning of the end to Pete Carroll’s time as Seattle head coach and put the Seahawks in a position to likely finish third or fourth in the NFC West for several years.

There are a lot of red flags for Seattle in thinking of hiring Lynn. First off, he hasn’t called offensive plays since he was the offensive coordinator of the Buffalo Bills in 2016. In that season, the Bills ran 492 rushing plays and threw 474 passes. The 2020 Seahawks ran the ball 411 times and threw it 563 times even though Seattle averaged 4.8 yards a carry, sixth-best in the league.

Seattle should have run the ball more this season – and stuck to running when it was working like against the Rams early in the playoff game – but shouldn’t have run so much that they ended up with more carries than passes and 12s are probably thinking that if Pete Carroll hires Anthony Lynn that Seattle will run the ball a lot more and probably have as many rushes as throws. This is also probably what will happen.

Sure, before getting fired as head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers this year, the Chargers threw the ball quite a bit more than they ran it. But Lynn wasn’t the OC and Los Angeles had to throw so much because they were behind early in games quite a bit.

Run, Seahawks, run

Seattle hiring Lynn means getting back to letting Russell Wilson cook less and running the ball more. But who is going to run the ball for the Seahawks? Chris Carson is a free agent and this week appears to have stopped following Wilson and the Seahawks on Twitter. Maybe he already feels he has one foot out the door. If Seattle doesn’t re-sign Carson and doesn’t have many quality backs then why even entertain the hiring of Lynn?

Pete Carroll needs to turn the offense over and not meddle. With an offensive coordinator who spreads things out and allows Wilson to improvise even more this would be the best fit for Seattle. And this isn’t Lynn. But likely, Carroll will hire a coach who likes to run and waste the next few years of the Russell Wilson and D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett trio and Seattle will be looking for a new head coach in three seasons.